“K-Kyung,” I forced out his name as we neared his home, which, by the way, was pretty big. Then again, it was no surprise that he was rich since his parents were friends with Seohyun. “I don’t think I should—”
“Hey,” Kyung shook his head, not taking my refusal for anything. Soon we were walking up the steps to his home and I felt my heart pitter-patter within my ribcage. Kyung knocked onto the door and immediately the door unlocked as if someone had been standing next to the door, just waiting for his arrival. “Come on,” Kyung dragged me inside. I cleared my throat and stepped into the home. The house was decorated in all sorts of design, ranging from a shiny golden vases to a picture of some crazy-nonsense art. What exactly were Kyung’s parent’s jobs that they own such expensive-looking things?  As if he had read my mind, Kyung tugged at my hand and raised a brow. “You’re wondering why I live in such a place huh?”
“Well,” I scratched the back of my head with my free hand. “I’m not in the same class as you so I don’t know much about your background.”
He smiled, “Let’s head to the kitchen and I’ll tell you a little something about myself then,” he suggested, “I feel extremely hungry,”
“Okay,” I nodded and followed him towards the kitchen. The kitchen was so spacious I was surprised that it was even the kitchen. Kyung let go of my hand and walked towards the refrigerator, looking for something to munch on.
“You want something refreshing?”
“No thanks,” I commented.
He looked at me, “Ah, that’s probably because the only thing you want is coffee, right?”
“Well—”
“I got it,” he raised a finger, “I’ll ask if one of the workers here can go fetch you a cup. You like… espresso, right?”
“You don’t have to—”
“Well, it shouldn’t matter what drink it is since you like coffee,” he cut me off and closed the fridge to walk back to me. Sitting on one of the high chairs, Kyung patted his hand on the seat next to him. I hesitated, but found myself walking towards him and sitting on the chair.

“Why did you invite me here?”
He exhaled, “Well, since you had me working on something for you at your place, how about you do something for me?”
I furrowed my brows, “What?”
He smiled, “I’m not going to say it yet,”
“Then I’m not going to agree to it,” I quickly refuted.
“If you don’t agree to it then, I won’t let you out of the house,”
I scoffed and immediately stood up from the chair, but he grabbed my hand, pulling me back to sit on the chair.
“Fine,” he sighed, “I need you to… help me think of ways to approach Seohyun and confess to her.”
“What?” I stiffened, surprised to hear this among other things. My mind couldn’t quite process his words, almost as if what he had told me sounded like foreign words.
“I want to tell Seohyun how I feel before we graduate,” he explained, “I don’t want to have to regret my feelings after graduation because I’m sure that I won’t ever see her again,”
“And so, you want me to help you?” I asked, somehow hoping that he was just kidding about it.
He nodded, “Just get close to Seohyun and tell me things about her,”
“How is that supposed to help if I’m the one getting close to her?”
“Because girls tell each other lots of things like how they want to get approached by a guy or who they like at the moment,” he explained nonchalantly, “I mean, I’ll still be trying to get her attention on me, but I would like it if she got to know you a little more. Plus, she thinks you and I are close friends.” He wrapped an arm around me, which I pulled away from.

I shook my head, “I’m not doing this,”
“Why not?”
“Because…” I paused, unable to come with an excuse except for the fact that—no. I just couldn’t go along with his idea, that’s it. “It’s unreasonable,”
He furrowed his brows, “It’s unreasonable?” he repeated, “How so?”
“Because having me become friends with her just to tell you what she looks in a guy is wasteful,” I answered and quickly added, “you can’t just force me to be friends with someone,”
“You don’t want to be her friend?”
“Well,” I struggled to find the right words, “I…”
He sighed, “Or maybe… you’ve actually fallen for me that you don’t want me to go after Seohyun?”
I stiffened at his assumption and shook my head furiously, “N-No way! There’s no way that I would ever fall for such a guy like you. You’re nothing to my ideals of a perfect boyfriend or even dating material.”
He frowned, “Hey, that’s not very nice to say,”
I crossed my arms in response.
“But if you find me unattractive then why won’t you do it?”
“I already told you my answer,”
“Oh come on, you waste your energy at the coffee shop every day when you could be hanging out with friends,”
“That’s a different story,”
“Not really,” he answered, “now, come on, just tell me you’ll do it,”
“For what price should I agree to it?”
“Price?” he repeated, “Well, I do have a pretty high GPA… I could help you with your homework,”
“No way,”
He nodded, “I topped first in class actually; I’m pretty sure you’ve seen that piece of paper with lists of names who scored high on that nationwide exam right?”
At the mention of that, I was reminded of that horrible day when I had found out what spot I had placed. I clenched my fist and remembered a couple of people gasping out Kyung’s name, seeing that he had placed first. I jumped back into reality and sighed, “You probably cheated,”

He laughed, “You don’t believe me?”
“No,”
“Fine, let’s take a quick test then,”
I scoffed, “That’s a waste of time,”
“Do you want to see my grades then?” He asked, then quickly said, “open your bag!”
“My bag?”
He nodded, “I’m sure you have a homework assignment you need to do and I can help you with it.”
I sighed and slung my bag off of my shoulder to place it onto my lap. I ped my bag and reached inside to take out my folder. Opening the folder, I searched for my assignment given today and slipped it out of the folder.

“What are you guys working on?”
“Calculus,”
“Easy subject,” he coolly said, taking my paper, and scanned through it. “Yep, I can definitely help you with this,”
“I can do it—” I snatched my paper back from him, “myself,”
He frowned, “Fine, do one and let me check it,”
“I don’t need to let you check it when I can do it myself and know that the answer is right!” I countered and clenched my jaw, offended at his words. I stuffed my paper back into my folder and put the folder back into my bag. “I’m going home,”
“Wait,” Kyung sighed, “why not just help me?”
“I don’t need or want to,”
“I’m helping you with Jaehyo,”
“I told you that you don’t need to,”
“What do I need to do to make you agree?”
“Nothing,” I answered, “there’s nothing you have that I feel I can take advantage of,”

“Fine,” he clucked his tongue, “go home! I’ll just have to keep appearing before you and text you like crazy until you agree to it,”
My shoulders slumped at his comment, my lips replicate the expression by parting. “So, what, you’re going to leave me alone the minute you confess to Seohyun and she accepts your feelings?”
“Well, I was going to leave it at me confessing to her, but, hey, since you suggest until she accepts my feelings as well, we’ll go with that,” he smiled, “what do you say? I know you hate having me at your side 24/7 right?”
I sighed, “Fine, but on the condition that you will lessen the spam of texts you keep sending me during class time. I’m unable to get any notes down because my phone keeps vibrating.”
“Deal,” he stuck out his hand and waited for me to take it, which I do.

-

The next morning, my phone began to ring like crazy so I forced my eyes to open and reached for my phone on the night stand. I didn’t even have to look at the screen to know who it was because there was only one person who would dare to call me in the morning like this—especially since today was a weekend! I placed my phone next to my ear and sighed, “What do you want, Kyung?”
“Wow you’re awake?”
I exhaled slowly, “No,”
“Well, you should probably wake up then,” he suggested, “its 9am,”
“What do you want?” I asked again.
He cleared his throat, “I’m coming over to your place,”
“When?”
“Right now,” he answered, “I think I’ll be there in a minute or two,”
I stiffened and felt panic arise within my body, “Y-You’re what? You’re coming over now? Why?”
“Because today you are going to accompany me and Seohyun to an aquarium,”
“Aquarium?” I repeated, “Who has the time to go to such a place?”
“Seohyun’s parents got exclusive stuff going on at the aquarium and her parents told her to go with friends. Unfortunately, she didn’t call me to go with her; her parents called me and told me to go with her. So then I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity for you to get closer to Seohyun so we can move on with our deal,”

I sighed, not wanting to take part in this at all, but if I wanted to get rid of Kyung and the underdeveloped feelings I had for him, I would need to be able to compromise. “Fine, I’ll be out there so just wait outside.”
“Okay, see you,” he said and hung up.

I groaned and slipped out of bed to get myself ready.

After 30 minutes, I slipped on my shoes and headed out of the house. Once I stepped outside, I took noticed of Kyung leaning against the bricked wall, touching his phone. I sighed and closed the door before walking towards him. Crossing my arms, I cleared my throat to catch his attention, “This is ridiculous,”
Kyung looked up from his phone and pulled on a big smile, “Come on,” he extended a hand for me to grab, which I shook my head and began to make my way out of the yard. “You don’t want to hold hands?” He asked, catching up to me.
“Why do we need to hold hands? We aren’t the ones dating,” I commented.
He laughed and scratched the back of his head, “Guess it’s just something I’m used to when we’re at school,”
I sighed, “Are we meeting up at her place or something?”
He nodded, “She’s expecting us so we should hurry there,”
“It shouldn’t take us less than 15 minutes or so to reach there,” I calculated the math in my head, “she doesn’t live that far,”
Kyung nodded, “So how was your sleep last night?”
I shrugged, “Same as always,”
“I dreamt of being able to fly,” he said giddily like a child, “it was amazing yet very unrealistic,”
“Why would you dream of flying?”
“Why can’t I?” He questioned, “What do you dream of? Coffee?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, “I don’t keep a record of what I dream of,”

“Say, have you ever dated anyone?”
“You really want to talk about my love life?”
He nodded, “I want to know some more about you,”
“For what reason?”
“Simply because we’re friends,” he answered, “all that I know is that you were rejected by Jaehyo,”
“I wasn’t rejected by him,” I countered, “I just… decided that I wasn’t into him anymore,”
“Same thing,” he flatly replied, “so?”
I sighed, seeing that there really was no reason to hide this since well… my love life wasn’t even that active, to be honest. “I have never dated anyone else,”
“Really?” He asked surprised, “I thought you would have had guys lining up to confess,”
“Nope,” I shook my head, “I’m more on the side of being friends with guys than actually having them confess to me.”
“Why’s that?”
I shrugged, “I guess I just don’t have that appeal that they look for,”
“I think you’re quite the looker,” he smiled, which surprised me. “When I saw you at the coffee shop, I thought you were with the guy standing before you… but then it turned out that you were alone,”
“Your honesty is going get you beaten up one day,” I frowned.
He laughed, “Nothing is wrong with a little honesty,”
“Says the guy who can’t even be honest with the person he likes,”

“Seohyun probably wouldn’t believe me if I told her,” his voice dropped. “She thinks I’m just being nice to her because her parents told me to,”
“Aren’t you in a way though?” I asked, “I mean, you’re going to the aquarium because her parents told you to go.”
He nodded, “True, but I want to go because I want to see her smile genuinely rather than putting on a fake one.”
“What is it that you like about her anyways?” I asked, curious.
He exhaled, “Well, I have a million reasons, but I don’t think you want to hear it,”
“Can’t you name one?”
He shook his head, “I can’t,”
I rolled my eyes and looked away from Kyung to see that we were already at Seohyun’s house. I followed Kyung into Seohyun’s home and we met her immediately. She was dressed in a blue top and skirt; hair curled dramatically like a star. I felt so underdressed compared to what she was wearing since all I wore was a t-shirt and jeans along with a pair of my favorite sneakers.

“You guys came,” Seohyun’s voice almost sang as she turned to look at us.
Kyung nodded, “You’re ready?”
“Yeah,” she smiled and looked at me, “thanks for coming along,”
I smiled back and shook my head, “It is no problem,”
“I hope I didn’t ruin any plans you had to day,”
“Nope,”

After that, we got into a really nice car and were taken to the aquarium.

author's note; thanks for reading
@chinguchan: aw well thanks! i hope you enjoy this one as well